WEBVTT - Frida Kahlo: When trauma shapes artistic creation 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:13.000 Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. Frieda Carlo 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.599 was an icon for the Chicano civil rights, feminist, and 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:21.079 lgbt Q movements. Her vehicle was her art, which is 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:26.560 unusual and very autobiographical. Her paintings revealed her traumatic history 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.240 and ongoing struggle with both physical and emotional pain, as 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:36.000 well as her inner strength, perseverance, and resilience. My guest 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.000 today is Celia Starr, a professor at the University of 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.840 San Francisco, where she specializes in modern American and contemporary 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.320 art with an emphasis on feminist art and gender studies, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.080 and she is the author of the new book Frieda 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:55.440 in America, The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist. Magdalena 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.920 Carmen Frieda Carlo E Calderon was born in July nineteen 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.760 o seven, though she often told other people that she 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.560 was born in nineteen ten, the same year as the 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.240 start of the Mexican Revolution, a movement that Frieda strongly 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.959 identified with. Born in Mexico City to a father from 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.800 Germany and a Mexican mother, they were in a typical 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:26.240 couple and unusual parents for the time. She was born 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.679 in July of nineteen oh seven, though that doesn't seem 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.760 to be what she referred to as her birthdate to 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.440 the world, interestingly, which also has to do with her 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.400 character and her character formation. Her parents were in Mexico 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.720 at the time, but her father's origin is really German 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.279 and her mother was from the area. They were somewhat 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:50.040 of an unusual couple, somewhat of unusual parents. He was German, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.160 she was from Mexico. Her mother, Matilde, was born in Oahaka. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.320 They met actually at a jewelry store. They worked in 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.840 the same jewelry store in Mexico City. It's really after 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.600 her father. His name when he was born as Wilhelm, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.240 but he changes it when he moved to Mexico and 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.720 he becomes Guillermo. They actually knew each other, but when 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.280 Guillermo's first wife died, he really turned to Matilde and 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:19.840 her family for support, and then they're close, they get married. 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:25.320 They really forged this relationship, with Guillermo taking an interest 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:30.000 in photography and Matilde really encouraging him to seek that 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.480 as a profession, and so he does quite well. He 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.160 becomes a professional photographer. Her family is involved with photography, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.919 is that right? Her family of origin, Yes, her father 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.640 was a photographer. It was in the family, and she 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.560 was like, yes, this is a good thing to do. 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.359 And it's also really interesting that what you point out 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.440 that when he came to Mexico himself, right, he really 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.040 reinvented himself, including his name, all sort of his likes 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.000 and propensities and so on, and just interesting for people 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.320 to keep in mind in terms of what kind of 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.880 model might Freed have had for reinventing herself, which becomes 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.080 important later in her life exactly. And because he was 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.320 a photographer, he also did portraits, although that was not 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:18.160 his favorite genre. He typically photographed buildings, but he did 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.240 photograph his wife, Matilda when they were first married. He 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.440 did a lot of photographs of her. He did a 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.680 lot of self portraits, and it does show in both 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.800 of these examples taking on various personas. And so I 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.800 think that definitely influenced Frieda as well, influenced her not 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.120 only in the freedom to take on different personas, but 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:42.280 also he at times photographed his family and including Frieda 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.280 and she as we'll talk about, I guess in a bit, 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.320 but you know, took on different personas even in these photographs, 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.880 and that was more than acceptable to him. In the 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.560 words another father might have said, why my daughter, are 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.920 you dressing in a suit and looking like a man, 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.040 and I'm not taking that picture. But that did not 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:06.840 happen at all. He was completely accepting and interested, if anything, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:11.839 in photographing her in whatever persona she presented at that time. Yeah, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.120 and I would even say I think he encouraged it 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.560 because on one of the photographs of Frieda, where she 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:22.040 is dressed in a man's suit, it says she looks 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.320 like Frieda wrote on there that it was her father's 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.920 suit that she was wearing, so he had to lend 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.960 her the suit. Therefore, I would say he encouraged it, which, 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.919 as you point out, seems pretty highly unusual in this 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.960 context of you know, at this point it's like nineteen 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.880 twenties Mexico. But they are in a suburb of Mexico City, 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.479 so they do have a lot of contact with you know, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.960 the urban modern society. But nevertheless, yeah, that was highly 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.919 unusual for a father to do. But I will say this, 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.120 when you look at the history of women artists, typically 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.080 what you find is that um, women who were able 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.839 to venture out and become artists and you know, be 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:08.159 educated and even sometimes forge careers. They almost always have 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.400 a father who is supporting this, and so in that way, 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.880 Frieda is no different. In addition to his supporting ultimately 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.360 her choosing art as a career, he really, as you said, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.240 he has this. Maybe it's urban liberal, unusual certainly for 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.480 the nineteen twenties, but the issue of let's say, sexuality, 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.360 what is acceptable to do, what is acceptable to show, 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.520 what is acceptable to be? He not so much her mother, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:39.680 but he has an attitude of acceptance and encouragement. The 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.000 relationship with the mother is somewhat different. It sounds we 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.040 don't know as much about her relationship with her mother, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.000 particularly early on. I mean, we do have a lot 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.360 of information that comes out in the twenties when she's 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.920 writing letters to her boyfriend at the time, Alejandro. Of course, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.680 there's this tension that's there because of various factors. But 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.000 I will say this, I think typically in the literature 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.960 we've seen a more of a strained relationship between Freed 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.920 and her mother, and I think that's true overall. However, 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.520 what I found in my research was actually much more 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.200 of a loving, supportive relationship than I ever realized. One 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.919 thing I think that's important for people to understand is 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.000 that when Frieda was really starting out as an artist, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.760 and we haven't talked yet about, you know, she had 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.800 this terrible accident when she was a teenager, but when 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.400 she is forging her out into sort of taking on 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.960 art for herself, it's her mother who suggests they make 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.599 some kind of an easel for her to have in 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.359 her bed while she's convalescing. And also she suggests putting 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.560 a mirror in the top of her canopy bed so 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.960 that she can look at herself and do self portraits. 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.920 And I think that's really significant that she's right there 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.720 supporting that. And when you look at letters that they 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.080 wrote to each other when Frieda was living in the 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.320 United States in her early twenties and she's writing to 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:05.840 her mother, a very tender relationship emerges. So I think 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.720 that there was a lot there that was positive as 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:14.720 well as some of the tensions. At the age of six, 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:19.440 she contracts polio, which sadly was not that unusual in 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.600 that time period, and relative to how many children did 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.440 she fared reasonably well. But it did affect her leg, 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.800 particularly neurologically, and she had this shorter and more withered 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.480 lower limb, which is something that she always felt or 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.200 subsequently felt I guess uncomfortable about children would tease her 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.120 or bully her about she would think of ways to 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.400 cover it up. And also importantly, she had this unusual 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:51.440 interaction with the teacher who examined her, already unusual to say, 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.600 you know, you should not basically engage in sports because 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.560 you have this situation with your leg, but I fear not, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.920 you can basically hang out and spend time with me, 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.160 with some of these other girls who were also spending 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.600 time with me, it sounds as though there was some 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:09.840 sort of impropriety in terms of perhaps a lesbian relationship 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.000 or I mean, you can't really say a relationship, you'd 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:13.520 have to say this is a child, you have to 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:19.080 say a lesbian predatory situation. And Frieda was removed essentially 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.400 from school as a result. Yeah, I think this is 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.720 a very obviously important event that happens in her life 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.280 for many reasons. And it is really complicated, as you're 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.520 pointing out, because on the one hand, this teacher was 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.240 acting inappropriately as far as we can tell. You know, again, 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:34.960 we don't have all the details. It's hard to know 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.880 exactly what happened from what we do know. She examines 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.679 freedom says, oh, you can't participate in pe. You're not 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.520 physically able to do this, which is seems ridiculous because 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.840 her father had really trained her to be an athlete. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.840 She was actually quite good at you know pe. But 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:53.800 the teacher says, no, you can't do this. So right 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.240 away Frieda feels that she singled out. Doesn't like this. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.439 But then when she starts going to the teacher's room 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.480 instead to help her out, the teacher is really nice 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.640 to her. She has her sit on her lap, and 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.360 Frieda says, as an adult, I fell in love with her, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:12.559 and yet this improper relationship is developing with the teacher. 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.880 And apparently there were two other girls who also were 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.080 in a similar situation. I think that has this impact 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.960 on Frieda on the one hand, of having this teacher say, oh, 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.000 you can't do physical activity, but yet come to my 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.800 room and I will have you sit on my lap. I'll, 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.800 you know, maybe caress your shoulders kind of thing. And 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.640 so this interesting duality that happens here. So the objective 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.120 position of excluding her in ways that are painful and 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.720 also insinuate that she doesn't have the resilience that in 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.439 fact she has had, but paired with this seduction, you 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.679 would call it her being very very nurturing, very caretaking, 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:56.320 and very over involved. And that is interesting inasmuch as 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.440 again later as we will see in terms of the 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.079 conflict for her about you know, to be taken care of, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.680 is that at odds with being capable and being strong 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.680 and being resilient, and these two sides that seemed to 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.559 be at least early on set up as mutually exclusive 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.680 but obviously something most people would want both and and 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:25.200 and she clearly strongly wants both. So it's interesting to 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.600 see this early experience that she had sort of setting 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.079 it up somewhat at odds with each other, and also 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.040 of course at being noted to her as something bad 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.200 being done. What the teacher did was wrong, and in 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.199 some ways her participation in it was wrong. But these 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.200 are all formative experiences as she's moving along, and she 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.679 is clearly a very bright girl. That's obvious, right. She 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.120 she was a very good student, but again in the 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.120 more conservative vein that she was with her family following 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:56.920 originally she thought she wanted to go to medical school. 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.920 She wanted to be a doctor, and she's doing very well. 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.880 She goes to a school that actually has very few girls. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.920 It is mostly male school. Already an intellectual in in 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.680 terms of really liking to dig into ideas and share 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:15.840 them with others and debate and discuss, and starts to 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.880 have a romantic life with a boyfriend before she has 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.080 this terrible accident. You don't see at that time in 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.280 her young life, as you often do with other artists, 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.520 a lot of involvement with artistic endeavor. Then she did 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.360 have a lot of encounters with art, but it wasn't 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.000 her main focus. Partly this happens because her father is 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.720 a photographer and she was his assistant. She would go 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.880 out with him when he would photograph buildings, and she 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.480 would a be there to make sure he had epilepsy, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.839 and so if he had an epileptic seizure, she would 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.360 be there to take care of him, but also to 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.320 watch out that nobody stole his photographic equipment. She also, though, 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:00.679 was his assistant in the sense that he taught her 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.880 about how to retouch photographs, and so she worked also 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.400 with him. He also did some painting on the weekends 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.400 and also would paint with him, so she had that 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.560 from early on. And then she also you know, had 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.640 studied some art in school. Her father actually got her 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.720 a kind of internship with a printmaker, and you really 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.920 see her having a knack for naturalism, you know, in 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.440 her teen years. So she did have this background in 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.840 art before the accident. Her goal was to go to 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.440 medical school to be a doctor, not to be an artist. 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.560 And was that because that was a reputable thing to 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.160 do or a way to I don't know, make a 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.760 good living, or was it that she had felt a 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.760 drive to the science, to the interest in the science 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.000 of that, or being a helper. Here she has this 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:49.920 father who in some ways is being kind of an 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.000 artist in certain ways. What does she describe as, you know, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.160 why a doctor and which obviously didn't work out. But 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.000 what is it that draws her to that? Do we know? 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.400 I don't think we really know explicitly. But she definitely 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.760 was very interested in the body. She was interested in 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.280 how the body worked. There are people who have talked 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.839 about who knew her in her later years when she 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.480 was in and out of hospitals and they were trying 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.439 to help her with her her health. There are assistants 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.319 who say that Frieda understood medicine in a way that 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.000 sometimes it seemed like she knew more than the doctors did, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.400 so sort of a sublimation of this difficulty that she 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.480 had first with polio and the loss of you know, 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.280 the full function of her leg, and then later this 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:42.000 terrible accident where you know, she had to be submerged 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.640 in so many ways in medical care. But a father 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.640 who has epilepsy and a mother who it's not clear 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:50.840 what she had, but it does sound like she often 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.480 felt that she was sickly at least. But then on 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.960 this track of being this great student, she's with this boyfriend, 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:03.040 Alejandro on this alley bus situation, and and there's a 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.160 terrible accident and she is very badly hurt. She breaks 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.920 multiple bones. Later they discover, in fact, even vertebrae in 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.400 her spine have been moved out of position. But she 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:18.480 also was impaled by the steel rod in her pelvis, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.080 which they pull out at the scene, has caused her 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:25.120 to have a pelvic fracture, but probably also impacted perhaps 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.400 her reproductive organs. This just completely derails her life. At 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.720 that point, she's in a wheel chair, she's bedbound, and 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.320 her mother says, hey, let's put up this mirror and 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.000 get you these paints and set up this easel in 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:37.760 this way. This is sort of the time when she 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.160 first really involves herself in painting herself. You have to 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:45.720 imagine that before she's bedridden, she's going to this National 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.920 Preparatory School, which was a very prestigious school in Mexico City. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.440 It was hard to get into. Freda was one of 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.400 thirty five girls who went there, and the students who 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.160 are going there were seen as up and coming leaders 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.880 of this new Mexican ulture after the revolution. Freda was 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.680 a part of that. She was going to be a doctor, 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:05.080 you know, a lot of her friends were going to 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.280 be lawyers. She was a very active person. She called 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.760 herself a street wanderer. She loved roaming around Mexico City. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.280 And now she's had this terrible accident and right she's 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.360 in her bed, and it was so difficult for her 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.920 to deal with on so many different levels. But yes, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.840 she starts creating art because she's what else is she 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.200 going to do? Right she's in bed, she's working on 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.200 walking again. Because one thing that's important to understand too 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.640 is that she was told she would probably never walk again, 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.680 but she was determined that she would walk again. So 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.440 she is working on trying to take small steps to 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.600 walk again, but she's also creating and a number of 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.560 things happen. One is, as she is starting to walk 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.200 again finally and she's working on her art more and more, 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:52.920 she realizes a couple of things. One is that all 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.600 of her friends have moved on, because she was at 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.680 a point where she was about to graduate from the 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.000 National Preparatory School and she would have gone on to 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.240 medical school. Her friends have gone on, and so what 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.640 is she going to do? And also she wants to 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.280 help her family financially because due to the revolution, her 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.640 father really lost his lucrative job because it was the 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.600 government under Porphyrio Diaz who had hired him. After the revolution, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.840 he loses that job. They're struggling financially. She wants to 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.880 help her family out financially. This is when right she 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.040 becomes very bold and she decided she's going to go 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.320 see Diego Rivera, one of the most if not the 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.800 most famous artists at that time in Mexico. And she 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.680 shows him, you know her work and says, what do 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.200 you think. I want to know what you think. I 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.720 don't want you to flirt with me. I just want 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.520 you to tell me what you think of my art, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.680 which was quite a thing to tell Diego Rivera because 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.880 apparently flirted with everybody and it didn't matter what your 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.320 age or your age difference was. He was. He was 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.560 this big womanizer. Had she made him previously, Yes, he 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.600 had come to her school, she had met him, but 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.040 it hadn't been a very exciting interaction. It was just 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.160 sort of there. Well, she used to tease him. So 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.320 when she was going to school, he was paid Antina 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.840 mural at the National Preparatory School, and so she would 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.200 tease him and pull these pranks on him and things. 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.680 But she was just like a schoolgirl, you might say, 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.480 at that point. But now she's coming to him as 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.800 a woman who wants to make a living as an artist, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.159 so it's a very different kind of context. And he 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.760 gives her a very positive response. He's impressed with her work. 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.560 He sees she has this unique i this unique vision. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.520 He felt that typically you see in a beginner, certain style, 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.760 certain subjects that maybe are common, but he sees something 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.120 unique in her early work. And yeah, he encourages her 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.480 to keep going, and that was obviously an important turning 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:48.720 point for her. This seems like a good time for 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:58.560 a short break. We'll be right back. Frieda had impressed 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.879 a great painter, Diego Rivera, and Diego recognized an intriguing 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:10.040 creativity in Frieda's paintings. In choosing her subject matter, there's 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:15.480 this combination of her internal emotional content and a use 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.440 of interesting symbolism, which seems to be again some combination 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:26.639 of emotionally what's happening inside of her, but also politically. 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.320 She joins the communist group that is there, and she 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.760 developed some very intense political feelings, but it's also culturally 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.520 what's happening, at least in the group that she's choosing 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.719 to be part of. But it really seemed like this 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.920 unique mix that came from inside it is coming out 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.680 of her culture. Frieda was from a culture that really 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.560 understood that there was another reality, one that lives side 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:56.320 by side with the physical world, an invisible reality, one 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.240 place where we can see. This comes out of a 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.919 lot of mes American cultures, but specifically I talk about 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.800 the Aztecs. They had this concept, certainly of the invisible 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.239 or this spiritual realm. Also, of course Catholicism does, and 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.600 so she grows up in this culture and understands this 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.439 what we might call invisible reality. And I think also 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.960 what I've found in really looking closely at the impact 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.280 of this accident on her at age eighteen, and then 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.480 later a miscarriage that she has in Detroit, and then 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.400 also the death of her mother around that same time, 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:36.119 in two all of these are incidents that I feel 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.359 take her into this realm of these experiences with death 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.200 on a very powerful level. In two cases, I would 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.919 say near death experiences for her. In the case of 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.520 her mother, of course, it's just experiencing this profound death 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.399 of her mother. And she comes through this, I believe, 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.000 with a new sense of reality. And what does that mean, Well, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.000 it's a reality again that is connected to the invisible. 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.760 I think she uses that in her artwork. Many of 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:08.080 her paintings contain these symbols that are to be read, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.960 decrypted and understood. A lot of her paintings do contain 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.280 references to death or the concern about mortality in the 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.960 living or losses and emotionally you can understand where that 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.159 comes from. But this use of symbols and sort of 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.520 the need to read almost the painting, where does that 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.800 come from? Well, I think it comes probably from different places. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.480 But two that I think are really important are a Catholicism. Again, 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.439 she went to church probably every Sunday for most of 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.600 her life. Her mother even had a special bench for 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.600 her family at the church in Coyokon where she grew up. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.600 San Juan Batista. I went to this church and it's powerful. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.119 It's a really beautiful, powerful church. And some of the 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.440 images that you're looking at, you know, of Christ, for example, 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.160 are very painful to look at, the blood dripping down him, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.560 the anguish in his face, and I think, you know, 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.600 these were images that were made to be read. And 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.040 then again, I think if we look at as tech art, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.919 you know, when she's coming of age, she's coming of 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.359 age at the same time that that, in a sense, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.600 Mexico is coming of age in the nineteen twenties, right 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.320 rediscovering what it means to be Mexican in terms of 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.960 going back to a time prior to the Spanish invasion. 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.720 And so I think just to be able to incorporate 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.119 symbolism into her work and layers into her work was 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:32.480 probably natural for her, and it was just how her 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:37.320 mind worked. She is a woman in search of or uncovering. 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.720 I guess I'll say her many potential identities. You're saying that, 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.080 you know, one of them was being very nationalistic. But 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.080 the identity of you know, to be Mexican is also 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.760 to be as tech, and that seemed very important. Another 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:55.680 identity seemed to be the fluidity of her sexuality, which 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.320 is interesting because obviously that would be somewhat at odds 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.280 with the Catholic Church and its teachings. I mean, it's 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.000 hard to imagine that would have been considered acceptable, nor 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.399 might it have been acceptable to be the third wife 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.960 of an artist who is known to commit repeated infidelity 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.439 during marriage. Anyway, And in fact, her mother seems to 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.720 have not been too thrilled that she chose to marry 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.920 Diego Rivera. No, she was not thrilled. She wouldn't even 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:25.879 attend the wedding. She wouldn't attend the wedding, which is 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.359 quite a statement. The father came and sounds like he 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:30.960 was happy that there was a man who would marry 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.640 his daughter and support her. He was a successful artist, 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.600 but the mother felt that he was not a good 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.480 enough man for her daughter, and certainly his morals were 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:42.960 not consistent with the mother's correct I mean, he's a 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.200 communist he's an atheist. He was like twenty years older. 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.240 She didn't approve it. However, I will say over time 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.399 she did grow to love and appreciate him. I mean, 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.520 she does discuss that in letters later on. She recovers enough. 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:02.760 She's walking, She's demonstrated an incredible drive and resilience about herself. 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:07.159 She's painting and marries Diego Rivera. She's painting somewhat, but 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.800 really Diego is the big artist, so to speak. And 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.440 they go to the United States together, and it's really 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.159 in the years there in San Francisco and Detroit and 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.359 her experiences and her exposure to other artists in the 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.760 community and what goes on with her relationship with Diego 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:30.000